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DiğerOther·Medina

Pulpit of the Prophet

The Pulpit of the Prophet (Minber-i Nebi) is the sacred place in the Prophet's Mosque where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his Friday sermons and made important speeches. The first pulpit had three steps; the place where the Prophet's pulpit is located is described as a 'garden of paradise.'

Diğer

Pulpit of the Prophet

Location

Medina, Saudi Arabia

Map

History

Initially, the Prophet Muhammad used to lean against a palm trunk to deliver his Friday sermons. As the congregation grew, the palm trunk became insufficient; a companion, or according to some reports, the husband of one of the Prophet's maidservants, made a three-step wooden pulpit. The Prophet Muhammad then began to sit on the third step of this pulpit to deliver his sermons. The most striking aspect of this change is the Miracle of the Weeping Trunk: When the Prophet moved to the pulpit, the palm trunk he had leaned against for years began to moan like a child. The companions cried when they heard this sound. When the Prophet embraced the trunk, the sound ceased; the Prophet said: "If I had not embraced it, it would have cried until the Day of Judgment." The original three-step pulpit of the Prophet was destroyed, stolen, and rebuilt during different political periods. The current pulpit was made of white marble brought from Mecca during the reign of Sultan Murad III (1574-1595). The place where the original pulpit of the Prophet is located remains within the Rawda-i Mutahhara. [Source: "Mescid-i Nebevî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mescid-i-nebevi; "Minber", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/minber]

Importance and Narrations

The Prophet Muhammad said about the pulpit: "My pulpit is on a garden of the gardens of paradise." [Source: Bukhari, "Fezâilü'l-Medîne", 5; Muslim, "Hac", 503] --- Miracle of the Weeping Trunk: Jabir b. Abdullah narrated: There was a palm trunk in the mosque; the Prophet Muhammad used to lean on it while delivering sermons. When the pulpit was made, the trunk moaned like a calf; when the Prophet embraced it, its crying stopped. [Source: Bukhari, "Menâkıb", 25; Tirmidhi, "Menâkıb", 8]